


i can't fear you (could have been me)

by Sharkchimedes



Series: we could dance in the face of the monsters [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Canon Typical Violence, Gen, Nonbinary Character, Order 66, POV shift, allusions to character death, ends on hopeful note, nothing is graphically described but there are injuries and blood and. well. order 66
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:15:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24247120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sharkchimedes/pseuds/Sharkchimedes
Summary: The Republic comes crashing down, and Temple Guard Cros Mors does everything they can to save the younglings of Anooba Clan.
Series: we could dance in the face of the monsters [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1750189
Kudos: 6





	i can't fear you (could have been me)

**Author's Note:**

> i immediately wrote one of the angsty parts of this series second so here we are fhsdfhhf. anyway this explains how cros and anooba clan got out and met sovic! 
> 
> as tagged, this takes place during order 66, so there is some violence!
> 
> it also probably isnt accurate to the temple layout and isnt canon compliant probably but i dont care. B)

Temple Guard Cros Mors was anxious.

They couldn’t say for sure _why_ , but they had woken up this morning with a bad feeling in their gut. The feeling of the Force around them hadn’t helped; it seemed heavy and felt foggy, like tension somewhere in your muscles that you couldn't knead out no matter how hard you tried.

The feeling remained as Cros ate their morning meal and went back to dress for their guard shift in their room, and it followed after them afterwards to their place in the halls.

It hadn’t helped when Master Drallig had called the whole shift together and told them plainly to keep an eye and an ear out. He wouldn’t tell them _why_ , of course, but when a rumor had started up that the entire _Council_ was out of the Temple, the feeling of unease doubled. It wasn’t unusual these days for much of the Council to be absent from Coruscant, but there was usually _someone_ left behind to manage the Temple.

Cros knew that there were other rumors going around that the war may be coming to an end, what with Count Dooku dead and Master Kenobi hunting General Grievous down for what they all hoped was the final time. Apparently, the Seperatist lines were falling apart.

It sounded too good to be real, if Cros was honest. Had it really only been a short few years since this had all started? 

\- - -

It _was_ all too good to be real.

And then it was all horrible, and horribly real, and everything fell apart.

\- - -

Cros had done the only thing they could think to do when the Force suddenly screamed a warning: dash for the lifts and head to the level of the creche dorms. 

Later, they would never be able to fully explain _why_ they had done that rather than stand and fight on the upper levels with their fellow guards, but they hadn’t, and there were too many other things demanding their attention and guilt, so they chalked it up to the Force.

As it was, they were now with Crechemaster Avali in the Anooba Clan dorms.

Cros blinked through the pain, tightening their shields as hard as they could and focusing on the quiet, strobing reminder that they had a _duty_ and they had been _called_ to the creche for a reason.

Avali put a hand to her forehead, and then fixed Cros with as stern a look as she could. “You have to take the younglings and _leave_.”

“What- I can’t just- Master Avali, I’m a Guard, I have a duty- I have to go back out there, I have to-” Cros wished their voice wasn’t pitching from anxiety, but before it could crack completely the crechemaster cut them off.

“Cros, you told these children once that it was your _duty_ to protect them, whether it took you from your post or not.” She said, eyes managing to regain a glint of steel, the sort that stilled energetic younglings and still scared masters into behaving. “You are a Sentinel; you stand between the candle and the star. And you can stand _running_.”

Cros felt any bubbling hesitation suddenly collapse in their chest as both Avali’s words - and a sudden new impulse the Force screeched into their head - told hold. Something Master Laf had told them once, suddenly echoed back to them.

 _It’s harder to live for something than to die; remember that, Cros. Your ‘saber is your_ life _, and that means you have to be there to ignite it. Kyber needs a harmony to sing_. She had smiled at them, and ruffled their hair. _And_ I _need you to give me all the gossip from the Temple._

They looked from Avali to the cluster of younglings pressed together behind her, tears running down each of their faces. 

“May the Force be with you, Avali.” Cros looked back to her and nodded, pulling the mask of the Guard from their face so they could see eye to eye, one last time.

There was a pained, bitter smile on her face. “And may it be with you, Cros.”

\- - -

Getting out of the Temple was a trial by fire and agony and screams and if Cros was honest with themself in the years that followed, they couldn’t remember most of it. They knew that they had managed to get the terrified younglings of Anooba Clan out of the creches and to the lifts that saw less use: the sort that when Cros was younger, they and their agemates had exploited to sneak about without their masters catching them.

That was the point where the memories, already hazy with the bleeding wounds pressing against their shields, started to come in flashes and vague impressions, all woven together with a loose tie of _I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me_ . The knowledge that Cros _had_ to finish this final mandate, even if they died as soon as the younglings had made it to whatever safety Cros could find for them. 

The chant, and that singular truth, carried them through the smoldering passages of the lower Temple. _I am one_ \- Cros deflected a bolt with one of their twin pike ‘sabers, hurrying the younglings down a different hall, memories of the present and the past melding. Iona was in the front of the group; _Cros was in front of the group, pushing off Bardan’s arm as he laughed at something._ Cuduth and Hazi were clinging to each other; _their little group of padawans darted into an old storage room when they heard footsteps ahead_.

Alarm suddenly shouted in the Force, stronger than the keening all around them, and Cros suddenly found their leg collapsing under them, knee hitting the floor with a _thud_. Pain laced up it, radiating from the sizzling mark of a shot. For a second, all Cros could do was stare at it. 

_There is no death, there is the Force,_ they thought, watching blood start to stain the tan of their uniform. One of the younglings shrieked, and awareness had snapped back.

From there, Cros remembered the desperate flight to an old maintenance bay, one Laf had first showed them when she introduced them to their grandmaster. Cros had to blink away images of _Naciri standing by her starfighter, grinning down at Cros as Laf squeezed their shoulder_. Now it was the home of decommissioned aethersprites, a training ground for the civilian mechanics who still worked with the Aces. There was a hatch _out_ , Cros knew.

Vaac screamed as blaster bolts peppered the durasteel wall beside them, yanking Py along as the human found new panic spiked energy.

_Cros, Bardan, and Finch had reached the door- it was a test of their grasp of the Force to open it without a Master or Knight in their party, but they managed it._

Cros blinked smoke from their eyes and heaved a breath in as one of their shoulders suddenly _burned_ in agony.

_I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me-_

They thumbed off their pikes and bundled the younglings up, pulling at as much of the trembling, writhing Force as they could grasp and _lept_. 

\- - -

From there on, Cros was fairly sure they were running on a shattered ankle: if not from the poorly executed landing, then from the shot to the leg. But it didn't matter- out of the Temple didn't mean safety. Not with the Home Guard _everywhere._

It was a little easier to think, outside of the Temple walls, but only just. The whole of the Force was still in turmoil, but outside it was like waves lapping the edges of a pond, and not drowning in the middle.

Cros managed to get them to a small spaceport on a lower level. Admittedly, they hadn't flown since becoming a member of the Guard, but Master Naciri had always impressed the basics onto them when she visited.

And that was how they ended up inside of the mandalorian's ship.

Cros felt no shame in admitted that they had planned fully to steal the first ship they could, herding the younglings quickly up into it and glancing around for the way to the cockpit, but then the footsteps had started coming up the ramp and Cros had whipped around, shoulder and leg protesting, and ignited both pikes.

The Force, however, wasn't screaming an alarm, even as the t-visor of a mandalorian helmet stared them down. It was almost… soothing, past the pain. As if it was gently telling them _they had done enough, they could rest now_.

Cros slowly dropped their stance, 'sabers lowering and blades receding.

The mandalorian stared back at them, all dark armor and one hand twitching towards a holstered blaster, but not yet taking it in hand.

_I am one with the Force-_

And Cros hit the deck, and it all went black

\- - -

Sovic Kys could honestly say today had gone well and truly to _haran_. When she’d first arrived on Coruscant that morning to hear a potential job offer, she hadn’t expected to be bailing out before she even made it to the client’s position in the lower levels.

That had been before whatever _osik_ had started up over by the Senate and the Jedi Temple, and whatever was making everyone on the HoloNet lose their collective minds. Sovic had started to overhear bits and pieces from the uneasy crowds around her, and had made the decision to call it off and head back to her ship and get back off Coruscant as quickly as possible. She didn’t need or want to be caught up in whatever this was.

She wasn’t the only one- she’d spotted at least two other mandalorians skulking quickly through the crowds: one in purple and the other in gold. She had tailed them for a short way, as far as their paths followed each other, and then had sent up a silent prayer that whoever they were, that they would find their way back home. 

But she could honestly say that despite everything else seeming to come apart around her on this cursed monolithic city of a planet, she hadn’t expected to return to her ship to find a _jeti_ trying to boost it from her.

She had come up the ramp expecting to see no one- it had only been down for the port droids to load up supplies to take back to her homestead. So it came as a surprise when she saw both the crates and the bloodied figure of a masked _jeti_ with two double-bladed sabers staring down at her.

Then, after a minute of silent standoff, Sovic trying to decide if she should shoot the _jeti_ where they stood, the _jeti_ suddenly deactivated both of their lightsabers, and collapsed in a heap on her cargobay decking. 

She stared down at them, pacing the few yards over to the limp form. They were more hurt than she’d realized- where she had previously only seen the wound of a blaster bolt to their leg, she could see there was another a nasty, oozing mark on their shoulder, and several other grazes and cuts. 

Sovic kicked at the _jeti_ , and there was a sudden clatter and scuffling noise from her left. 

She whipped around and stalked towards the sound, raising her blaster and thumbing off the safety- _she would not be so kind to the first_ jeti’s _friends for trying to play her for a fool_ \- until-

“ _Osik!_ ” She cursed.

In front of her, behind the crates of supplies, there were five trembling, soot and blood streaked, tear stained children. They were all looking up at her in abject terror, the two closest to her trying to push the others back closer to the cargobay walls. 

She glanced back to the fallen _jeti_ on the deck. The uniform wasn’t one she’d seen before- most of the _jeti_ she’d heard of or seen at a distance looked fairly alike: soldiers in a war. But this _jeti_ had their face covered by a mask and wore a different armor configuration than any she’d seen before. Even the poor excuse for a _kama_ wasn’t something she’d seen before on any _jeti_. 

If that was a _jeti_ , likely from the Temple since she didn’t recognize them, then that meant that these had to be _jeti_ younglings. 

A shuffle came from in front of her, and she looked back to see one of the foremost children trying to pull away slightly from the others, eyes fixed with a look of sheer panic on their fallen guardian. The others were trying to pull them back, staring at her as she looked down at them.

For a second, Sovic felt her lip curl under her helmet. It would be so, so easy to simply call the port master and be done with all of this- whatever _all of this_ was.

But as she watched the _jeti_ younglings torn between their terror of her and their terror for their injured master, it hit her.

 _They were just kids._ Jeti _or not, these were just scared karking kids._

“ _Osik._ ” Sovic said again, and shook her head as she marched away from the frightened children and hit the bay door controls, and went through the door to the cockpit.

As she took her seat and readied the ship to leave the spaceport, she reminded herself that even if the adult was a _jeti_ , they had had a full minute to charge her, or use the Force on her, or whatever a _jeti_ did when they were caught like a loth cat in a snare. And they hadn’t. They had just looked at her.

“I had better not kriffing regret this.” She grumbled to the empty air, and took off.

**Author's Note:**

> and yes "between the candle and the star" is a vague babylon 5 reference i couldnt help myself


End file.
